Riders of Judgment: An Exercise in Ontological Criticism

MAX W E S T B R O O K University of Texas Riders of Judgment: An Exercise in Ontological Criticism A fully-developed approach to literature must have a philosophy, a literary theory which follows from that philosophy, and a practical criticism which follows from that literary theory. By these standards, formalist criticism and genre criticism are fully-developed. The three stages of formalist criticism may he suggested hv the philosophy of Plato, the literary theory of John Crowe Ransom, and the practical criticism of Cleanth Brooks. Genre criticism has Aristotle for its philosophy, R. S. Crane and Elder Olson for literary theory, and such practical critics as Crane, Olson, John Cawelti, and Wayne Booth. A criticism not grounded in all three levels — the socio-economic for example — is confined to thematic studies and to certain types of literature. Archetypal criticism is stalled at a half-way house. C. G. Jung and Eric Neumann write with philosophical awareness, but neither is a formal or systematic philosopher. Northrop Frye, the leading theorist of archetypal criticism, is an Aristotelean and thus one who gives reason a monopoly on knowledge while studying a world view in which reason does not have a monopoly on knowledge. The result is that the practice of archetypal criticism is confined to the search for match-ups and to the thematic studies which result from matching one version of an archetype with another version of an archetype. If formalist criticism were stalled at the same half-way house, its practitioners would be confined to the sterile matching of one symbol with another. If genre criticism were incomplete, its practitioners would be unable to study new forms except in terms of similarity and difference with old forms. 42 Western American Literature The present essay, of course, is not an attempt to solve the problems of archetypal criticism. The intent, rather, is to offer a list of assumptions about archetypal criticism as I think it should be practiced. These assumptions will then be applied to a reading of Frederick Manfred’s Riders of Judgment. Manfred’s study of the Johnson County War has been selected because it is an excellent novel about cattle barons and cowboys, that is, about experiences which are incompatible to the methods of match-up criticism. The intent, therefore, is to work backwards, to suggest that a practical archetypal criticism can establish connections with the philosophical insights of Jung (Neumann, Mircea Eliade, and others) even though a formal and systematic philosophy is not available. In the hope that such connections can be established and archetypal criticism developed at all three stages, I use the term “ontological” to signal the difference between a criticism which can be applied to any literature and a half-way approach confined to match-ups with standard myths. As a modest step toward a practical criticism, therefore, the follow­ ing immodest assertions. 1. An archetype is a metaphysical story, a metaphysical insight expressed in story form because reality is l>elieved to be dramatic, not discursive. The archetype of the founding of the world, for example, is comparable, as philosophy, with Plato’s theory of the real and the actual and with Aristotle’s doctrine of inherent forms. 2. An archetypal story, like a philosophical theory, may be written any time, any place, and is not confined to classical or primitive cultures. 3. Artists and societies do not have to go to the theorist to find their archetypes. It is usually the other way around: theorists go to artists and societies to find archetypes. Thus a Hollywood director who has insight into reality but little or no academic knowledge may employ the archetype of the founding of the world, just as the American Indians developed their initiation rites without reading Arnold Van Gennep. 4. An archetype, like a symbol or an idea, may be intelligently employed by a major artist, superficially employed in an advertisement, skillfully invoked in a popular film or novel and then betrayed for the sake of a happy ending, and so on. 5. An archetype, as Jung indicates, may be more or less unconscious for a particular artist or people. Max Westbrook 43' 6. An archetype is...